Payments toward $15 million worth of repairs on the Florida building that collapsed were set to begin this week
- Owners of the condo building that collapsed were about to start paying for a repair assessment.
- They were facing assessments for $15 million worth of repairs, CNN reported.
- The payments were reportedly expected to start exactly a week after the building collapsed.
The owners of the building that collapsed in Florida were facing assessments for $15 million worth of repairs, CNN reported.
The payments were due to start this Thursday, CNN said, a week after the Champlain Towers South collapsed. Search-and-rescue crews are still working through the rubble, and at least 11 people have been confirmed dead with 150 still unaccounted for.
In April, the Champlain Towers South condo association approved the assessment so they could complete repairs needed under the county's 40-year recertification process, according to documents obtained by CNN.
The documents showed that the organization began the assessment process more than two years after an engineering consultant found "major structural damage" in 2018. The engineer's findings were released in documents by the town of Surfside in Florida.
A document sent to residents of the building said the cost of an assessment would range from $80,190 to $336,135 depending on the size of the condo, CNN reported.
Repairs included fixes to some of the issues highlighted in the 2018 engineers report, such as new pavers and planter landscape.
Some building owners had already sent in paperwork to start payments a day before the collapse. It's still not clear whether the issues highlighted in the 2018 report contributed to the collapse, but experts suspect a structural failure at the bottom of the building could be the cause.
Additionally, a pool contractor who visited the building only two days before it crumbled said that there was unusual water damage in the garage of the building and that a staff member told him he thought it was a waterproofing issue and the building replaced pump motors every two years.
The 2018 report said the building's design was flawed and didn't have proper pool-deck drainage.